I always wanted to live a marvelous life.

There is a Jefferson Airplane song I listened to in my childhood called “The Other Side Of This Life.” It is a meditation on the absurdity and unpredictability of existence beyond what you can see. One lyric says something along the lines of getting a sailboat and heading to the Gulf of Mexico just to see what another side of this poor life might look like.

The words and sounds resonated with me so deeply that they rattled around my preadolescent spirit until they were settled into permanent place by a raging hormonal uptick that infected me with terminal idealism. I, too, wanted to see the other side – wherever and whatever it was.

The only trouble was that I was shorter on prospects than lead singer Marty Balin. Extremely limited in scope, having grown up in the Inland Desert of California with nothing around but cars and gas stations to feed them. UCLA seemed like it could be my access point to the strange extremity I had hoped for. An opportunity to meet far-out screwballs, see the four corners and bask in the glory of life’s absurdities.

Despite all the fascinating new people and admittedly refreshing scenery, I still couldn’t see a way out of the short stretch of land where I’d spent my entire childhood. Months went by, but there was no additional pep to my step toward an interesting life. On a whim, I decided to apply to the Daily Bruin in winter. I could write well enough – I majored in English after all – and it was a more productive use of my time than missing Zoom classes and waiting for dining halls to open.

Rejected.

It was an unexpected development. Although, it shouldn’t have come as a shock. My application looked like a flowery gossip column full of self-inflation and subjectivity. Nevertheless, after I recovered from my ego coma, journalism was on my radar. I started to read the popular outlets feverishly, listened to live interviews and studied the Daily Bruin craft until I felt I was ready to apply again.

I was finally accepted to Daily Bruin in the fall of my second year. An obsession took hold of me immediately. There were still adjustments to be made to my work. Many times, I bit off more than I could chew. Once, I tried to work on three stories simultaneously just because I thought I’d be next on death row if I said “no” to an editor. Only two were published.

I wrote and wrote until my fingers wore down to stubby mounds. I wrote about immigration parole in Texas, I wrote about a feud between film students and administrators over recreating a political movement on campus, I wrote about exciting new electric vehicle chargers on campus. I even had a brief, failed stint as an editor. Unfortunately, I’m hardly good at managing myself, so that position was spectacularly incompatible. Senior reporter had a better ring to it, anyway.

I was never much of an office rat like some of my admirable colleagues. After seeing how far Daily Bruin expanded my horizons, I wanted to see the stratosphere of journalism. I probably applied to a hundred internships before I started landing any serious roles. However, at the heart of every application and interview was the work I did with Daily Bruin. It was – and will remain – the spark that jump-started my love for and career in journalism.

I would be remiss if I failed to acknowledge the newsfolk in the Daily Bruin I’ve worked with and admired these past few years. Catherine Hamilton, Matthew Royer, Dylan Winward, Anna Dai-Liu, Shaanth Kodialam, Sharla Steinman, Constanza Montemayor and my first-ever editor, Ally Kaiser. Outside of news, the friendships I’ve made with people like Sanjana Chadive, Martin Sevcik, Kate Green and Andrew Diaz have been some to be gushy over. Everyone I ever spoke to in Daily Bruin made a lovely impression on my person.

One morbid moment from my Daily Bruin career was when I was beaten outside the Palestine solidarity encampment in pursuit of a story on student arrests. I was reporting for another outlet, but I checked in with Daily Bruin reporters periodically. Night after night, despite the battles outside the office, the Daily Bruin had stories filled with detail that legacy media couldn’t fathom.

They are a part of the reason I kept on reporting on the arrests after the incident. True journalistic marvels.

Since that rejection so long ago, I was able to go to New York to report on international banking and meet sinister suits, travel to Washington D.C. to learn the congressional reporting ropes and meet an underground tattoo cult in San Francisco with ties to organized crime, all in part because of my work with the Daily Bruin. Andrew Diaz and I filmed a portion of a documentary about Los Angeles furry raves just last week.

Without Daily Bruin, I’m not sure I would’ve ever had the chance to see the more riveting side of life. From now on, when the peculiar winds of human existence whisper in my ears, I will remember the small office in Kerckhoff Hall.

Buchanan was News senior staff 2023-2025, the national news and higher education editor in 2023 and a News contributor 2021-2022.